Day after day,there I am right in the middle of it. Is that not what I always wanted? To be the eye of the storm. The calmness for others that I can not provide for myself. Strong, compassionate, and most of all willing to push for honesty above all else. It is a part of me and yet I still question my sanity.

I’m off center, you see. I feel a bit too much and have wondered since I was a little girl if my brain wasn’t somehow bruised by the weight of the world’s rigid expectations. I was an only child and one has to invent much more than imaginary friends at times. One, this one, had to invent love.

And as I grew and things became a bit more twisted, I wondered again if there wasn’t something wrong. Wrong… so very wrong. Sexual in nature, my passions were with me from the start. Remembering nothing and remembering everything. Blank with only feeling. I know what happened to me. I’m not disgusted by it. Instead pushed into a place of forced reality, I couldn’t dream my way out of this one. Out of his pain, out of mine.

The nightmares began shortly after. Unwilling to slow down for fear I would miss something or perhaps more importantly, afraid something amiss would happen. My pulse runs fast, I slow it down for the doctors, as simple proof that I have control. Yet, instantly it flies back again afterwards. The lie finds another victim. “I am normal. I am just like you. No reason for concern.”

Time passes as it is meant to do, and I am ready to find my own version of what I thought life could bring. From one man’s bed to another, always the tease, never truly giving in. Until, on a humid summer afternoon, I collapsed. I was called away to a place inside. I had a choice to make, as my body lay limp on the kitchen floor. Would I lose myself forever to the fantasies I had created? The worry would cease. Insanity was my only true male role model. He was there to rescue me, finally.

Life pulled me back, and I consider if I do not curse it just slightly, for doing so. A few more years pass and I begin to get the very real sensation that yes, I am friends with that …. that thing called… “being crazy.” There was no fear, it just happened upon me. Sane or not, matters little when your reality is one you dread on an hourly basis. Escape, escape, escape.

Freedom found me through another man, but really it just found me. He, this man, or was it freedom (?), was my savior. He would hold my heart and keep me safe. We wrapped our souls around so tightly we began to kill one another. Slipping away into the softest of comas, we barely even noticed. Until, we did.

Pain in its most pure form sat by my beside and listened to my cries but never offered to push away my tears. Encouraging always encouraging, to give in… take my drug of choice and leave this place, where people live with structure. No desire to die, but never wanting to exist this way. More… always more. We played footies under the table … Insanity and I. And I admit, it felt delicious having his hands upon my flesh again. It was home, like the very best of memories, or the easy breath of contentment.

Already on such well aquatinted terms with my bedfellow, I understood the seduction. I began to struggle and push away from this creature that made everything beautiful. Unable to move beyond, I made the choice more consciously, this time. I wouldn’t find myself staring up at a white ceiling in some mental institution. I would not just float no matter how deeply I longed to surrender to my darkness.

I still to this day have fast hands, nervous knees, and tapping toes. To slow down might mean something… a something I’m not so sure I’m ready to face. If my life isn’t over scheduled and overemotional, the allure of my predator may once again become very real. I must have reasons to stay here with you all. These reasons must be stronger than those that are so openly accepting of another version of me.

I’m not crazy, but with a blink of an eye, I very well could be. I know this. It is this part of me that pushes me to want more. I will be defeated if I don’t have my powerful moments, demanding exploration, and never ending connections. He isn’t afraid of me, and at times I’m terrified and in love of/with the one that always comes. He never forgets, he will never leave, as he is my invented love. Whatever it is, this is, if I was a writer it would make for a glorious story. Instead, I’m left wondering what is real anyway?

— by unknown